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[00:00:00] Mike Howell: The dirt with me, Mike Howell, an eKonomics podcast where I present the down and dirty agronomic science to help grow crops and bottom lines. Inspired by eKonomics.com farming’s go-to informational resource. I’m here to break down the latest crop nutrition research use, and issues helping farmers make better business decisions through actionable insights. Let’s dig in.
[00:00:38] Mike Howell: Hello again everyone. Welcome back to the Dirt. Glad you’re tuning in with us this week. Today we have a very special guest with us, so we have Dr. Tommy Bowden with us. Dr. Bowden is a, a medical doctor. I think this is gonna be the first time we’ve had a medical doctor on with us, and you’re probably wondering what in the world are we going to talk about with a medical doctor?
[00:00:57] Mike Howell: Well, if you’ll hang on for just a few minutes, I think you’re really gonna get some good information out of this. Uh, before we get started, I want to give Dr. Bowden just a minute to introduce himself and tell us what he does.
[00:01:08] Dr. Tommy Bowden: Sure. Thank you, Mike. I appreciate it. I, I was born here in south Louisiana and raised in, in the south here, you know, from, from Lafayette, went to high school, college in Lafayette, graduated in chemical engineering in Lafayette out of ULL, went to med school in New Orleans, and, uh, graduated in 92.
[00:01:26] Dr. Tommy Bowden:I did an internal medicine residency in Baton Rouge and then, uh, started working in the er. I’ve been working in the ER for the past 30 years.
[00:01:34] Mike Howell: Okay. Well, Dr. Bowden, we really appreciate you taking time outta your busy schedule to visit with us. I know you’ve got a lot going on. Uh, before we really get kicked in and talk about what I wanted to talk about, I wanna throw a curve ball at you.
[00:01:45]Mike Howell: I did not. Prepare you for this question and, and you may get upset with me, but we’ll, we’ll deal with that. But, uh, there’s a lot of information going around on the internet here in the, in the south especially, uh, you know, we’re right at the end of crawfish season here, and there’s, there’s different opinions out there.
[00:02:00]Mike Howell: People say you have to remove that digestive track from that crawfish before you eat it. Uh, personally I don’t do that. I just pop the head off and start eating. But, uh, can, can you tell us medically, is there any reason why we need to pull that digestive track out of there? Or can we just eat those crawfish?
[00:02:16] Dr. Tommy Bowden: You know, I don’t know if I can speak from a professional standpoint medically ’cause there’s a reason, but, um, you know, I’ve run into people that have had exposure to crawfish, spicy nature of it, things like that, and they can affect your bowels, right? And, uh, as we see, so, uh, people with diverticulitis have, have run into problems with things like that where I, I catch ’em after a boil where they’ve eaten and then they’ve either eaten, eat the crawfish a second time or something.
[00:02:39] Dr. Tommy Bowden: So that’s something where I, I don’t know if I can speak towards removing the, the, the little black vein, the digestive tract outta the back of the crawfish, if that makes a difference or not. But I do know people with diverticulitis, uh, tend to have a, uh, a little trouble process and all the spices and all of the, the, uh, the stuff that’s in the crawfish boil, I think, I don’t know.
[00:03:00]Mike Howell: I. Okay, well, I guess we still don’t have a definitive answer on that, so I’ll leave that to our listeners. They can, they can decide for their self, which way is going to be the best. Uh, Dr. Bowden, what we really wanted to talk to everybody about today is some safety factors, uh, some concerns that happen in rural areas.
[00:03:16]Mike Howell: I grew up in rural Mississippi. I’ve lived in rural areas most of my life. And shortly after I graduated from high school, uh, I’ll joined the volunteer fire department. Got a good bit of medical training there and did that for, for probably 15 or 20 years, uh, after I got outta high school. But, uh, I saw a lot of different things.
[00:03:34]Mike Howell: Uh, one of the first things I learned was about the, the ABCs of first aid, and I think that’s something that a lot of people, uh, may not understand and kind of talked to us a little bit about the ABCs of First Aid, what somebody needs to know if, if an incident comes up.
[00:03:48] Dr. Tommy Bowden: Sure. That’s a, that’s a tough, uh, tough discussion even though it sounds very simple about it, but it’s a tough discussion.
[00:03:54] Dr. Tommy Bowden: But I would, I would tell you, um, talking about the ABCs, they’re really covered in, in the basic lock support training classes, and I think those are really critical for people that are. In remote areas to know how to care for yourself and, and prevent what seems like an emergency and you prevent from being a catastrophe.
[00:04:11] Dr. Tommy Bowden: Uh, you know, just basic things. There are certain things we talk about, A, B, c, they, they translate into airway breathing and circulation. We, we try to, uh, prioritize in that fashion. They’ve shuffled them through the years a little bit, but I just stand with the a, b, C concepts. It’s out and about. I would tell you.
[00:04:26] Dr. Tommy Bowden: You know, if somebody passes out on the, in, in front of you or, or becomes unconscious or something where they’re having airway trouble, you, you wanna make sure that their airway is open in some fashion. You know, that that could be varied presentations where somebody’s choking on something or maybe they have a seizure and go down in front of you.
[00:04:42] Dr. Tommy Bowden: Just as simple as putting ’em on a rescue position on their side. To try to keep their airway open, I think is important for us. You know, if the airway’s open and you can see that they’re not breathing, that’s where humanity hopefully steps in and you try to breathe for ’em for a little bit, you know, mouth to mouth.
[00:04:56] Dr. Tommy Bowden: Sometimes there are all kind of devices that are available now that serve as barriers. Um, you know, if it’s a loved one, I’m not, I’m probably not using a barrier, right? If my loved one goes down, I’m getting after it. But, uh, there are certain populations you may get into where you’re. You’re not sure about and it can be very risky.
[00:05:11] Dr. Tommy Bowden: And so that mouth to mouth situation is, is tough. So keeping some kind of barrier device, as you said, I’m work, I’m working on a forum with a lot of people that, that come and go and, and I, and they’re not part of my family, but they, they’re part of the workforce. For me, I’d go, well, just having that out there is, is would be helpful.
[00:05:26] Dr. Tommy Bowden: Other thing I, you know, talk about the A to B2C is, is the circulation component of it. Somebody passes out and you see their breathing and you check their pulse and they seem to not have a pulse. That’s where that BLS training can come in for us to just do basic stuff to service. As you know, compressions while our heart’s not beating or beating poorly in that moment, it’s one of the few elements that, that I think that just keeping that blood moving as minimally as it moves, just keeping it moving is critical for us.
[00:05:54] Dr. Tommy Bowden: Um, ’cause if it’s not moving, there’s nothing happening. So anyway, just kind of a quick glance over. Again, I don’t want to discount that A, B, C, but I really think to go in depth, you would really need to, uh, take a BLS training course, which is fairly simple and inexpensive and, uh, really, really helpful for those crisis times to help you think through it.
[00:06:14]Mike Howell: Dr. Bowden, since you mentioned taking that class, uh, can you give our listeners any, any information where they may could find these type of classes? I think the Red Cross used to do some of those and, and various other organizations.
[00:06:25] Dr. Tommy Bowden: Yeah. I, I work at Riverside Medical Center if I was throwing a plug out there for ’em, that, uh, they’re pretty consistent in trying to create classes like that.
[00:06:33] Dr. Tommy Bowden: Some are for the community, some are for the healthcare workers that are in the area, but BLS is something that both can share. Together. It’s not something that, you know, you have to take with community members or with healthcare workers. I think you do better to take it with, you know, in a mixed format where we have both available to get the education and and expertise of those people that have done it, you know?
[00:06:51]Mike Howell: Right. Okay. Well, Dr. Bowden, let’s move on a little bit. Uh, the next thing I kind of wanted to mention, you know, I’m, I talked about being a firefighter, and I never will forget the, the very first call that I went on as a, a firefighter. I had no idea what to expect, but the pager went off and I jump in the truck and take off.
[00:07:07] Mike Howell: Well, it, it ended up being a farm accident. Uh, this man was attempting to hook up a tractor, uh, with a three point hitch. He hooked the implement up and somehow during the process of doing that, he tried to raise the implement up and it was too heavy for the tractor. It actually raised the front end of the tractor up, pinned him beneath the tractor between the tractor and the implement, and he had a compound fracture of his leg.
[00:07:29]Mike Howell: So that was, that was pretty, uh, remarkable for my first experience, uh, on the fire department and I really had no idea what to do. Thankfully, we had some, uh, trained people there that knew what to do and, and how to take care of him before the ambulance got there. But. You know, broken bones can happen to anybody.
[00:07:44]Mike Howell: Uh, what what should somebody do in the event of a, a broken bone? And, and even when a, you have a compound fracture where that bone’s protruding out, what, what does somebody need to take care of in that situation?
[00:07:55] Dr. Tommy Bowden: Yeah. So kind of a couple different scenarios you laid out with, with one sentence, but, uh, you know, I would tell you if it’s a fracture or, or severely injured limb, you may not know if it’s fractured, right.
[00:08:04] Dr. Tommy Bowden:But if it’s severely injured limb, you kind of want to immobilize it in the position it’s in as best you can. And, uh. Some of that may translate into a position of comfort where you have to move it just a little bit to get a little more comfort outta the patient. You know, if you, and you kind of set a breath full there with a leg injury and then open, then you move that to an open fracture where you’ve got a bone protruding out.
[00:08:25] Dr. Tommy Bowden: You wanna, uh, keep things clean as best you can mind, Ella, you’re in a field with a form implement that causes this. So do your best to keep it clean. You’re not trying to reduce fractures in the field, in my mind. You’re not trying to, uh, put that bone back inside the skin, per se. At some point that’ll have to be taken surgery and all washed out and cleaned out in a sterile fashion.
[00:08:47] Dr. Tommy Bowden:But, uh, you know, the best thing I think, you know, having done this for a while, is that. Just immobilize it as best you can in that position. If, uh, if the patient is actually transportable, try to get them to an area where you can get ’em, where it may be easier for EMS to get to instead of in the middle of a pasture or something.
[00:09:04] Dr. Tommy Bowden: So, but if you said, no, it’s, it’s rough and I’m moving I, or there’s a lot of blood or something like that, that’s when it takes you to other ways of thinking of going, I’m just gonna mobilize it, gonna lay ’em flat. Uh, maybe just their, their head, it’s slightly elevated or something at that point, you know, I’m trying to.
[00:09:19] Dr. Tommy Bowden: Keep a, a bad situation from turning into a, a catastrophe, meaning death. And so I’m, I’m, it looks like the, you know, the implement fell on ’em and crushed their limb and, um, swollen purple. It’s discolored. They can’t move it. I’d go, I, you know, I’m assuming they broke it. I’m assuming they’re losing blood in their limb.
[00:09:37] Dr. Tommy Bowden: You’re not trying to put any tourniquets on at that point in time. If it’s a closed fracture, you’re really just trying to immobilize in the position it’s in. Wait on EMS if you can possibly get ’em to the road or closer to the where EMS can get you. ’cause I’ve seen MS get in and get stuck. Then you got a problem or a problem on a problem.
[00:09:54] Dr. Tommy Bowden: So what I would tell you is, uh, if possible, you know, if you said, I can’t move this guy, man, every time I move him, he’s, he’s blood curling scream. And I’d go, well, you just gotta leave him where he is, immobilize it. If you said, well it’s, I can tell there’s an oak bone sticking through and he’s squirting blood out through this hole.
[00:10:11] Dr. Tommy Bowden: You know, basic, uh, life support training kind of dictates that you really wanna try and. Put some sterile packing in that wound and pack it to the depth of the wound. Put pressure on it. See if you can control it like that. And if, if that doesn’t work, then you, you’re not trying to remove that packing.
[00:10:27] Dr. Tommy Bowden: You wanna pack on top of that packing and keep packing in. I hear a lot of tales where people were packing in the field, couldn’t get it to stop, remove that and start repacking and you’re pulling clot out and other things out, and factors that are critical for us developing that clot in there. So you really wanna try and pack on the, on the packing?
[00:10:45] Dr. Tommy Bowden:Just continue packing. He said I, I’ve done all I can. I’ve used my packing. Just soaking the packing. I would say, you know, tourniquet in the field is one of the most lifesaving measures out there that most policemen and law enforcement officers and paramedics and, and, and, uh, first line providers have those tourniquets on there because it can really save your life from what seems like a wound that you should not die from.
[00:11:06] Dr. Tommy Bowden: But you can’t stop the bleeding if you can’t get a control and still bleeding and put a tourniquet on. And when you put that tourniquet on you, you wanna time it, you wanna note that time on that tourniquet, which is, which is, um. It’s tough because you, you, you know, you at some point in time you gotta reassess it and reevaluate it, and hopefully it’s in a healthcare setting.
[00:11:22] Dr. Tommy Bowden: But, but, uh, you know, I, I think probably those maneuvers would be probably the most helpful you could do while you’re in the field and trying to address that injury and keep it from turning bad.
[00:11:32] Mike Howell: Dr. Bowden, you mentioned, uh, going, taking the, the person somewhere closer to an ambulance or making it easier for ’em to get to.
[00:11:38]Mike Howell: And that was one thing that, that we always tried to talk to people when we had, uh, people coming in, uh. Give a, give them good directions. Uh, don’t just say, go down to where the tree blew down 20 years ago. Uh, people may not remember that or may not remember where a gate is that that’s commonplace that we talk about, but, uh, if you can give them specific directions, uh, nowadays with our iPhones, uh, you can, you can send a pen to the emergency people and they can, they can help get there with that pen.
[00:12:04]Mike Howell: But, uh, the better directions you can give the better. And if you do happen to have enough people there, uh, send somebody to go. Drive the ambulance in, uh, lead, lead the ambulance in that, that always helps to get ’em to the person and, and not spend time trying to find where they need to go.
[00:12:19] Dr. Tommy Bowden: Yeah, very critical.
[00:12:20] Dr. Tommy Bowden: Uh, very good point you’re bringing up there and that I, I’ve been doing this long enough to know that that was not the case maybe 30 years ago or 25 years ago, but nowadays, uh, I get to listen. I’m part of the, you know, radio network in the er. We listen to them talking and chatter. I can hear the event happen.
[00:12:37] Dr. Tommy Bowden: And the helicopter lights right where the event happened and, and picks them up and brings them to the closest trauma center. So it’s really kinda, uh, injury side triage where they, when they get there, basically they, they, uh, realize that this, this is going on and this is where this person should go. So they literally light right there, as close as they can get to ’em, get ’em on the helicopter and fly ’em to where they need to be, which is, it doesn’t get talked about enough, but, but I’m kind of pre that.
[00:13:05] Dr. Tommy Bowden: And so where that didn’t occur, and now to listen to it behind the scenes occur is really, really neat to, to kind of go, because they roll ’em into me at Riverside. We have a great facility, a great little hospital. We take care of everything that comes through the door as best we can. But, but I don’t have a trauma surgeon, don’t have a neurosurgeon, don’t have any ologists around, maybe a couple, but, you know, uh, cardiologist.
[00:13:30] Dr. Tommy Bowden: But, um. Just not a lot of people around. If they roll something in where it’s a full trauma code, I’m, uh, I’m, I’m wanting to do the things I can to stabilize ’em and get ’em down the road to a higher level. So people do walk in the door like that, where they’ve kind of go and I had this implement, go through my left chest or something, and, and here I am.
[00:13:47] Dr. Tommy Bowden:I walked in the door with it. And so you take care of those things and then get ’em to that higher level. But the, uh, what they call it, I imagine, the Learn Network, the Louisiana Emergency Response Network has really become powerful in oversight and direction for that, uh, injury side, triage and, and redirection real time, which is special.
[00:14:07] Mike Howell: Things have Sure come a long way, that’s for sure. Uh, you know, Dr. Bowden, we we’re both here in the south. Uh, things are already starting to heat up. I think we’ve had, uh, 90 degree temperatures, 95 degree temperatures for the last few weeks now. It gets to that time of the year where we start seeing, uh, people having heat related illnesses, uh, and being out on a farm, we can run into that pretty routinely.
[00:14:29]Mike Howell: Uh, but it makes me remember back to a time when I was in graduate school, uh, I, I had a crew of people working for me and we were putting out insecticide trials. We were mixing different insecticides and spraying those We had on Tyvek suits and full face respirators, and it’s a hundred degrees and 90% relative humidity.
[00:14:47]Mike Howell: Uh. We had been doing this for five or six hours and it, it got pretty hot in the, in the process of doing all of this. I had one of the students that was helping me that, that kinda, he said, Hey, I’m, I’m not feeling good. And I could tell he was really pale. He, he started having some muscle spasms and he just collapsed on us.
[00:15:06]Mike Howell: I did not realize at the time, I didn’t know. And your brain starts running. Uh, is is he having a reaction to some of these insecticides we’re putting out or is this a, a heat stroke? What’s going on? Uh, fortunately we were able to get him in the truck and get him cooled off, get him to the hospital within about 10 minutes.
[00:15:21]Mike Howell: And, uh, everything worked out. He was having a, a heat related issue. But, uh, can you tell us a little bit what to look for when, when it comes to heat related issues and maybe how to distinguish that from, uh, an insecticide poisoning or something like that?
[00:15:36] Dr. Tommy Bowden: Yeah, Mike, I, um, I hadn’t been down that rabbit hole in a while, you know, I see it periodically, not frequently.
[00:15:42] Dr. Tommy Bowden: So, with your prompting of that question to me, I, I went down a little bit of a rabbit hole to refresh some of my memory about the stuff and found some interesting bits and pieces. One of the things that, that kind of struck me as like, oh, wow. But, uh. They talked about, I wanna say organ phosphate poisonings, we talked about those.
[00:16:00] Dr. Tommy Bowden: Uh, in the early, in the right, around 2000 or 1997, they threw out some numbers that they had 20,000 cases reported. Fast forward to 2020, there’s 2000 cases reported. And so, you know, decimated that did a great job of that. Right? And, and they, they took, they think that was really just education. Getting education out, knowing that these can be a problem, you gotta protect yourself.
[00:16:20] Dr. Tommy Bowden: So when I, when I went down that rabbit hole, I started pulling out all kind of long names, you know, the, the, you’re familiar with in your world, readily, I’m sure. But when I started going down to each of those little pathways and, and kind of this, this can cause this, this can cause that, this can cause this, when I found in general is there’s a huge overlap of symptomatology between poisonings.
[00:16:42] Dr. Tommy Bowden:Insecticides or herbicides as well as just heat exhaustion, a heat stroke, they overlap the whole spectrum. So in my mind, one of the first things I thought about just trying to offer a pearl to your listeners would be. Don’t try to diagnose it in the field, you know what I mean? Just treat what you’re seeing.
[00:16:59] Dr. Tommy Bowden: If they, if they passed out, you wanna keep ’em flat, maybe try to get a little water in them. You know, if you, if they can’t, if they, when they wake up, you can’t put water on the, if they’re not conscious, right. But if they’re away, they have histories that you know about. Maybe diabetics got out there work too hard, work too long and, and insulin kicked in or something and they got low blood sugar.
[00:17:15] Dr. Tommy Bowden: So. Trying to understand and gain information quickly in that setting, but also realizing you’re not necessarily responsible for treating it. ’cause a lot of the treatment tends to be supportive. And so just getting ’em to the ER quickly, like you said, just, uh, you know, a few minutes trying to get ’em there quickly.
[00:17:29] Dr. Tommy Bowden: You don’t wanna try and stand ’em up. You don’t wanna try and make ’em sit up after they passed out, you know, uh, rudimentary or what I consider rudimentary, but helpful things you can do if somebody passes out. Protect them, make sure their airway’s open. But, uh, a lot of times when we pass out, the blood goes to our legs, and so when we lay somebody flat, I’ll raise their legs up, as simple as that maneuver may be.
[00:17:51] Dr. Tommy Bowden: As long as their airway’s open and, and just, just trying to support and get some blood back to their core, to pump to their brain and, and, uh, things like that. Making sure that they’re, that they’re breathing and you’ve called that 9 1 1 and, and just trying to interact with ’em at that point, you know.
[00:18:07] Mike Howell: Dr. Bowden, uh, back when I was doing this on a regular basis, they told us to, to cool the person off if you thought it was a, a heat related issue. And I’m, I’m hearing some things, uh, from people these days that, that may have changed a little bit. They say, instead of slowly cooling them off to rapidly cool ’em off, maybe even some burge and ice water, if you know they’re having a heat stroke.
[00:18:26]Mike Howell: Uh, what can you tell us about that? What’s the best thing these days?
[00:18:31] Dr. Tommy Bowden: You know, just that maintaining that thought of, I wanna cool that person off. ’cause if you told me, uh, I don’t readily have a tub of ice laying around that would take me 30 minutes to get a tub of ice ready for somebody. So I, I think the most important thing is just know you’re trying to cool ’em off.
[00:18:47] Dr. Tommy Bowden: So, uh, cool towels, cool water. You know, tap water is a, is a first start instead of leaving ’em for 20 minutes to go get a tub of ice ready or something. Um. You know, I would also tell you that extreme changes in things are not helpful to us. So to go from, you know, maybe a core temperature of a hundred degrees, 102 degrees, when you’re having that heat stroke to throwing you in the water is, is in an ice bath, is, it was shocking to the body, right?
[00:19:14] Dr. Tommy Bowden: And so, uh, I’m not necessarily promoting that per se, but I think you gotta cool ’em down. You have to think like that basic stuff is out of the sun. Cool water, cool water on their body, um, things like that, you know, and thinking about that next step in front of you, how do we get to the er? Do we have to call somebody or is it quicker for me to put ’em in the car or drive that two minutes, or should I call EMS?
[00:19:33] Dr. Tommy Bowden: And so thinking like that, just basic things, I think are rarely helpful. Not, not trying to have a dictated that, well, I’ve gotta get ’em in that. Thing. If she said, I I, I’m next to working where the horses are and there’s a horse draw full cool water. I’d go, well, that makes sense to me. You know, as long as you keep their head level water.
[00:19:53] Dr. Tommy Bowden:But, but, uh, the same breath, I’m, I’m going, I’m, you know, make sure you’re with ’em and you don’t abandon them trying to do something else to fix them or something, you know, first thought should be, I’m calling for help. Right. You know, get some help.
[00:20:06]Mike Howell: Dr. Bowden, I’ve, I’ve thrown out several situations at you, things I have seen over the years.
[00:20:10]Mike Howell: I’m sure you’ve seen a lot more than I have. Are there some other potential situations that you think people need to look out for in these rural situations? Uh, specifically on the farm?
[00:20:20] Dr. Tommy Bowden: Yeah. Right. Stuff that we didn’t talk about. I mean, we could talk for a couple hours, right? But, uh, if you said, give me some, some stuff you see that they’re on the farm, I’d go, you know, classic is, we’re going out behind that.
[00:20:31] Dr. Tommy Bowden: Shed, Mike, to help get some of those boards to help you finish building that barn you got there. We flip some boards up and, and, uh, snake hits me, right? Yes, sir. And so that snake hits me. I’m, I’m, I’m not trying to, uh, run. Per se, I’m not gonna keep drinking that beer. I’ve been drinking all day. ’cause that’s gonna mess things up.
[00:20:48] Dr. Tommy Bowden:I’m not gonna drink a bunch of caffeine. I’m trying to keep my heart rate low. I’m trying to keep my extremity down, whichever limb got hit. I’m not trying to catch the snake to bring it in so they can identify it. I watch people get hit and then get a second bite off of trying to then identify the snake, which is insane.
[00:21:04] Dr. Tommy Bowden:Right. So, um. I grew up with an old school man who was, uh, he did some things that I won’t mention on how to take care of snake bites. ’cause I don’t want it to be conveyed that that would be okay. But I grew up an old school guy that didn’t go to the ER for those kind of things. And he did the stuff that, when I read in the literature it says, don’t do that.
[00:21:23] Dr. Tommy Bowden: So don’t cut the wound. Don’t suck the wound. Don’t, um. Put a tourniquet on it and you know, you, you, you kind of wanna do things that are gonna minimize your heart rate, keeping it low, um, you wanna go get checked out quickly. What we find is that about maybe 20% of, of the snakes out here are venomous and can do us harm.
[00:21:45] Dr. Tommy Bowden: When I was a young man, there was, um, some anti-venom medicines that were, uh, I don’t know. I grew up with that. They were kind of iffy that they was like, man, it’s a risk if you get the antivenom. So you, let’s just see how a snake bite does. 30 years of doing this and then refining things. I err on the side of caution now to give the antivenom because I’ve seen the sequelae or the problems afterwards when I didn’t give it.
[00:22:06] Dr. Tommy Bowden:I’ve had run into people, you know, 10 years later and they go, man, I’ll tell you what about lost my leg. Wish we’d wish we’d have given that anti-venom. And, and, uh, they’re, they’re okay now. But I’ve also been humbled to kind of go, okay. Uh, I’ve been more aggressive in my approach this past summer. Not this summer, but 2024.
[00:22:24] Dr. Tommy Bowden:I. I gave, uh, anti-venom three different times. You know, about once, once a month or might be, I’ll say April, may, June. And, um, just kind of trying to be aware if you get hit, take it as real and seek attention. ’cause when things start going bad, they can go bad quickly and then you may not be able to see attention.
[00:22:43] Mike Howell: Right. And, you know, my thinking on that, I’m scared to death of a snake. If I get bit, I’m probably gonna have a heart attack. But, uh, even if a snake is non venomous, uh, you’re not worried about the toxin. Uh, you can get all kind of bacterial infections and things like that. So I go to go to the doctor, get it checked out, and, and don’t, don’t play around with that kind of stuff.
[00:23:04] Dr. Tommy Bowden: No. Great point, great point. In fact, uh, that’s, that’s part of the, the discussion around why you should not cut the wound because your blade was not clean. When you cut it, you know, you might have been cutting wood or an apple or skin a deer with it if you’re like me, right? And so you don’t wanna be cutting that and putting those things in there.
[00:23:19] Dr. Tommy Bowden:But, uh, yeah, no, I think that’s a good point that the risk of infection is higher than the venom. Um, when you start talking about the fact that now we can treat it with anti-venom. So, but, uh, the majority of steaks, snake bites are not venomous snake bites by definition. And so when you start talking about that, then you run into infection problems.
[00:23:36] Dr. Tommy Bowden: So I totally agree with you. Right. There’s a good point.
[00:23:38] Mike Howell: Well, Dr. Bowden, we’ve, we’ve talked a lot about some instances and some things we need to pay attention to. Uh, one thing we haven’t talked about is what, what kind of first aid kit should somebody have if, if they’re on a farm? Uh, some, some general things that they need to keep with them, uh, just in case an accident happens.
[00:23:55] Dr. Tommy Bowden: Yeah, that was a good point. We kind of touched upon that in the, in the front end when we started talking about fractures and bleeding and things like that. Just having a kit where you have a lot of sterile dressings, that you’re confident, they’re sterile, even if they’ve been in there for a couple years, you’re still confident that they’re really clean dressings having those, ’cause you wanna be able to stuff ’em down in the wound without doubt.
[00:24:14] Dr. Tommy Bowden: You know, you wanna be able to, to pack as much as you can. And the other thing I found, as much as we can talk about band-aids and other things like that, the tourniquet is critical. For stopping the situation from being, uh, this is bad to, this is lethal.
[00:24:29] Mike Howell: Right.
[00:24:30] Dr. Tommy Bowden: You know, and so I’ve, I’ve seen a number of situations where first responders put that tourniquet on and they say that patient, you know, one of the classic examples, I remember a gentleman.
[00:24:41] Dr. Tommy Bowden: Tried to, uh, take his own life and, uh, cut his wrists and cut his radial artery and took off running through the woods. He was kinda had some other things involved chemically that were not helping us thinking I’m sure. But, but nonetheless took off running through the woods far enough where he ran out, where he passed out.
[00:24:58] Dr. Tommy Bowden: He lost enough blood where he passed out, so he was in a bad situation. By the time the cops actually catch him and get to him, he’s lost enough blood to pass out. If they don’t put a tourniquet on him and get him into me, and I get him some blood and get him tanked back up and doing better, he dies from that radial artery wound.
[00:25:14] Dr. Tommy Bowden: If you don’t treat it appropriately and can’t just put pressure by the wound, or you gotta pack it, you gotta put pressure on the wound in the wound and uh, that’s not doing it and you’re still bleeding. You gotta put a tourniquet on and knowing that you gotta get somewhere, somewhere quickly. Somebody’s got to get to you quickly.
[00:25:32] Mike Howell: well, Dr. Bowden, we, we really appreciate you taking time to visit with us today. We’ve covered a lot of great information. I hope this is gonna help people out there, uh, kind of know what to do. Uh, is there anything else that you feel we, we haven’t talked about that you really think we need to mention before we sign off today?
[00:25:48] Dr. Tommy Bowden: Yeah, Mike, I’m glad you gave me that opportunity. This, this will sound crazy, but, um, you, you and I grew up with the immunizations, right? And tetanus was part of that immunization with some few other things in there. I won’t go in there, talk about the logic or the things of those now, but, but there are about two or three cases of tetanus that happened in Louisiana a year.
[00:26:06] Dr. Tommy Bowden: And I’m sure a couple, two, three in Mississippi or a couple in Arkansas a year. And, uh, I’d been out maybe two, three years and ran across ’em, an old timer. A farmer came in to see me and, and, uh, couldn’t get his dentures out. And it struck me as odd. And I was like, well, my little simple brain went straight to lock jaw.
[00:26:25] Dr. Tommy Bowden: And I said, well. I said my, my Mimi used to take her dentures out every night and put ’em in some effervescent, something. I don’t even know what it, what it was called. Right. You remember, right. You’re old enough to remember that, right? Yes. Momo had that in the glass on the side table. So I said, did you cut yourself or do anything unusual lately?
[00:26:42] Dr. Tommy Bowden: And he said, uh, no. No, I ain’t got no. I said, you have any wounds anywhere? He said, no, no. He said, well, he said, uh, about two weeks ago, I was walking through the barn without my shoes on and I, and I stubbed my toe on a disc. And, uh, I said, huh? I said, lemme see that toe. So he whipped his foot out and toe looked perfectly healed up, but it was, had a purple look to it that didn’t look like a right human color and then didn’t look like a bruise.
[00:27:06] Dr. Tommy Bowden:It just had kind of an odd purple look. So, uh, I called up the, the gentleman and, uh, the hospitalist and he laughed and said, you know, he was like, yeah, you know, that’s, you found a case of tetanus, right? And I was like, yeah, yeah, I’m pretty sure. So I’d been into the hospital the next day. He was intubated.
[00:27:24] Dr. Tommy Bowden: Because he had respiratory failure from the tetanus, and uh, three months later he left the hospital alive, which is crazy. Wow. But he was in respiratory failure that long because it’s typically a lethal disease. So if you said, that’s a long story to tell me about tetanus, I’d go, I’m just trying to drive a point home to go.
[00:27:39] Dr. Tommy Bowden: I think that’s actually a good thing. You know, I, I’m not here to sell immunizations across the board or anything like that. But the idea of going, I’ve seen it and I see the, I saw the outcome of it, and I, I can sell those now. I can, I can sell you a tetanus shot if you come in and cut yourself. So it has to do with dirty wounds.
[00:27:57] Dr. Tommy Bowden:We think about, ’cause tetanus is ubiquitous. It’s everywhere and in the soil, um, not in the air mind you per se, but it’s in the soil. And so any dirty wound or cut something like that, you’re, you’re at risk for it.
[00:28:09]Mike Howell: and that reminds me, I’m, I’m probably due to getting my tetanus shot. Uh, how long are they good now?
[00:28:14] Mike Howell: It used to be two or three years back when I was a kid, but, uh, I think they’re longer now, right? Yeah,
[00:28:19] Dr. Tommy Bowden: yeah. Yeah. I, I, I kind of, it’s almost become a universal, if you break the skin, you get a tetanus shot. So if you told me I’m, I’m washing knives in the kitchen, you know, I ate steak with this knife last night and I’m washing the kitchen next day.
[00:28:34] Dr. Tommy Bowden: I said, you cut it. I’d go, it’s really 10 years. Right. You didn’t have. Tetanus on that knife. You didn’t have it in your sink, per se, unless you’re doing a lot of stuff in your sink, you probably should not be doing with food around. So I would tell you that, that, uh, you know, if you said no, it’s, man, I got the, I was in the garden and I found an old knife that I had that back there a couple years ago, and I cut myself on that one.
[00:28:57] Dr. Tommy Bowden: I’d go, that’s a tetanus setup. So I’m a five year guy in that range. You come in. Cut it on the kitchen knife of the sink. If you’re not up to date, I’m gonna hit hook you up. But the, I think of it more of an extended period of time because of the risk involved. Right. Does that make sense? Yes, sir. Just, just certain, you know.
[00:29:14]Mike Howell: Okay. Well, listeners, we really appreciate you tuning in. I hope you’ve learned something from this, uh, something that may help you down the road. Uh, Dr. Bowden, thanks again for joining us. Uh, listeners, if you will, stay tuned for just a few moments and we’ll be right back with segment two. Farming Isn’t Farming without Questions, and now there’s a place to go for answers.
[00:29:33] Mike Howell: At eKonomics, an entire team of agronomists is waiting and ready to help for free. No question is too big or too small. Visit Nutrien eKonomics with a k.com and submit your question with the ask an agronomist feature.
[00:29:50]Mike Howell: Listeners, welcome back for segment two. Uh, really enjoying doing this section, uh, every week where we talk to an agronomist and ask them a question of the week to help us do that. This week we have Lyle Cowell, a senior agronomist with Nutrien back with us today. Uh, Lyle. Welcome back.
[00:30:05] Lyle Cowell: Thanks for having me, Mike.
[00:30:06] Lyle Cowell: Uh, appreciate this segment of your show. Uh, it’s great to be able to answer some questions from the farmers in the field.
[00:30:12] Mike Howell: Lyle, we, we know you’ve been around for quite a long time and have a lot of experience up in the Canadian region, uh, dealing with different soil fertility related issues. And the, the question I wanted to ask you today is, during your time working up there, what has been the most unusual circumstance you’ve, you’ve come across involving soil fertility?
[00:30:33] Lyle Cowell: that’s a good question. And, you know, the most unusual one, and, and this is a, a bit from the left field. And, and probably the soil fertility question that has confounded me most is a very minor issue of manganese toxicity that we see in some of our soils. That is a problem that I misdiagnosed.
[00:30:54] Lyle Cowell: Manganese toxicity looks exactly like sulfur deficiency in canola in wheat, it looks a lot like potassium deficiency or even just drought in wheat. And I mistook it as a problem for other issues. Sulfur deficiency the first couple times that I saw it in the field. Now it’s a minor problem, but it’s a very important problem if you have the problem.
[00:31:16]Lyle Cowell: And these soils have increased in acreage in the past few years. I see more and more pictures of it, get more questions about it, and where’s it occurring. It’s occurring in sandy, acidic soils in the northern prairies, uh, that have become more acidified over the course of crop production. So as they become more and more acidic, and these are quite acidic soils, the PHS of oh five or, or less than a.
[00:31:42] Lyle Cowell: Less than, less than five. And in those conditions, manganese, which is a, an essential required nutrient, becomes soluble at toxic levels to the point that it reduces crop production. So that is most certainly the most reflexing soil, nutrient, uh, issue that I’ve ever run up against in, in my career. Mike.
[00:32:03] Mike Howell: LA That’s an interesting situation.
[00:32:04]Mike Howell: I can’t say that I would’ve gotten that one right either. You got a very wrong la. We appreciate you taking your time to visit with us today. Uh, always get a lot outta your answers here. Listeners, we appreciate you staying with us this week. If you have any questions about anything we’ve talked about today, you can always visit our website.
[00:32:22]Mike Howell: That’s nutrien-ekonomics.com. Until next time, this has been Mike Howell with the Dirt. Hey guys, if you like what you heard today, do us a favor and share this podcast with someone else. It could be your neighbor, your friend, your crop advisor, or whoever you think would enjoy it. Your support helps ensure future episodes, so please like, subscribe, share, and rate the show wherever you’re listening from.
